


i wanna love you but i can't let go

by swimthewholeriogrande



Series: Call This Living [1]
Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Graphic Description, Hurt Jake Peralta, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Physical Abuse, Prison, Violence, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 07:30:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17442584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimthewholeriogrande/pseuds/swimthewholeriogrande
Summary: Jake's out of prison. So why does he still feel so trapped?





	i wanna love you but i can't let go

**Author's Note:**

> More Jake in prison whump because let's be real he's gonna be dealing with that for a WHILE  
> Title from It Never Stops by Bad Books!

_"You dumb little shit."_

_He's kneeling, handcuffed; they're cutting his wrists, blood spooling down his thumbs, and he's shaking, the collar of his shirt soaked in sweat. He doesn't want to look up, and see Romero, because he doesn't want to get another punch. He can't see out of his left eye. It hurts, his body hurts, so much._

_"You think you can rat me out to the warden?" Romero's voice is cold and without any of the mirth he'd had before when scolding Jack. He presses his shiv under Jake's chin, forcing his head up, staring at him with furious eyes. "You think you can get away with it?"_

_When Jake swallows, the blade dug into his throat. "Romero," he tries, and it's a pathetic whine, and Romero smiles at him. It's a shark's smile._

_"After I kill you," he says pleasantly, "I'm gonna have you shipped to your girlfriend's house."_

And Jake wakes up screaming.

He's thrashing, fighting nothing, tangled in his bedsheets. He lashes out blindly when there's a hand on his shoulder and meets air with his fist. The lamp is flicked on then - there's warm, buttery yellow light, and Amy, still rubbing sleep out of her eyes. He knows he's awake and it wasn't real, but he blinks and Romero has the knife and he's shouting again, nonsensical.

"I didn't!" he hears himself plead, "Romero, I didn't I swear _please_ don't do this please I -"

Amy guides him to sit up and rubs his back until he stops shrieking - he's so sweaty - and talks in his ear. "I've got you, babe," she promises."You're home. We got you out."

Jake's throat is sore and aching; he knows the neighbours will complain in the morning and he'll have to pull the defender-of-the-public card. He relaxes into Amy, still breathing hard, and pushes his face into her neck. She's soft and warm and everything prison wasn't.

She holds his hand; he feels his pain rush through her, sharing the bleed. 

-

_Caleb is looming above Jake, shadowed in the dim nighttime of the cell, his hands around Jake's throat. His eyes are vacant and hungry, a million miles away, and Jake doesn't want to die like this._

_The pressure is Earth-destroying, God-defying. His blunt bitten nails scratch uselessly at Caleb's face, at his friend's face, accomplishing nothing, and Caleb leans down til they're almost nose to nose._

_His deadened gaze bores into Jake's; Jake feels his own neck snap._

He jerks awake at his desk, scattering case files, barely muffling a shriek in the collar of his hoody. Heads turn; he's trembling, volatile and about to run, until suddenly he's in the restroom, vomiting, and there's a warm hand on his back.

"It's alright, Jacob." Holt says gently when Jake makes a weak noise of confusion, "You are perfectly safe."

Jake throws up again into the toilet and then slumps against the side of the stall. He's weak and embarrassed and his mouth tastes awful. He doesn't even want to look at Holt, at the man who's surely disgusted by this display of - of patheticness - but Holt is appraising him with surprisingly soft eyes.

"You have not been sleeping." Holt doesn't look disappointed, obviously, but Jake can hear in his voice that he's sad and it makes him want to cry. "I'm going to sign you up for some counselling."

"No!" Jake yelps quickly, and then, "uh, no thank you, captain. I'm okay."

"Jacob." Holt reaches out and holds his shoulder, a blessed, grounding presence in the tiny stall they're both scrunched into. He fills the space, making Jake feel like a kid, small and protected. "That was not a question."

\- __

__

_The guard's baton comes down again and again. He can feel a rib or two crack, imagines the splinters piercing his heart and lungs and liver; he chokes and writhes on the filthy cafeteria floor. All eyes are on him as he burns, a man on fire, a spectacular open wound._

__

_The guard kicks him over onto his stomach and presses his boot against the back of Jack's head, grinding his face into the dirt and blood and spit on the ground. Jake's spine aches down every vertebrae._

_"Again!" Caleb says apologetically and Jake half-crawls back to the pain._

Sometimes he doesn't scream when he wakes; this is one of those times where his body locks in place and he lies deathly still, mute with fear, until Amy's internal Jake-radar goes off and she wakes up. She turns on the light and coaxes him onto his side to face her; Jake wonders if she ever saw that video of him getting the shit beat out of him.

"I did." she murmurs - he must have spoken out loud. She strokes his hair back. "You were - it was brave of you, to do that."

Jake smiles, tiredly, and he doesn't bring up the fact that the guard still works at the prison. Neither does she. "I'm sorry I woke you." He's sorry for a lot of things.

Amy tuts affectionately. "Don't ever be." she orders mock-sternly, and he drifts off again, caught in the safety net of her arms.

-

_Hawkins shoves the muzzle of her gun into his mouth, the slick iron taste making him gag, and gag again as she pushes it further towards his throat. Jake struggles and jerks as she clicks the safety off._

_"Easy, tiger." She sounds cool and calm, like the hero he thought of her as, and tears well in his eyes. "Don't be such a girl." The metal bumps and scrapes his teeth; her finger settles on the trigger; he is going to die._

_I'm going to die. I'm_ -

"Jake."

It's Rosa. It's Rosa, who got her life ripped away right beside him, who dropped into her seat like she was drowning when that verdict was passed. Jake's lying on the breakroom couch - he was just taking a nap - and she tugs him upright, rougher than Amy usually does but with a gruff sort of care.

"Nightmares?" she asks bluntly, and he doesn't play it off, just nods. He knows he's not the only one who came back from prison with its ghost.

Rosa's face is hard, but Jake knows her. "Me too." she offers, a sharing between them, and Jake nods. He's exhausted, and Rosa can see it, just like he can see she is too.

"It's gonna get better," Rosa says, fiercely, for both of them, and Jake nods again.

"I know."

She shoves him back onto the couch then. "Go to sleep."

"Rosa, I can't -"

She sits down across from him. "I'll protect you." she promises, no teasing or pity in her voice. "We all will."

Jake's tired eyes slide past her to the precinct - buzzing, busy with people he loves. He thinks if anyone was to come for him, they'd have an awful lot of his family to go through. And he finally, finally, he sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, please comment if you enjoyed!


End file.
